EXCLUSIVE: A French official pushed back on claims by President Donald Trump that recognizing a Palestinian state amounts to handing Hamas a victory, insisting the initiative advanced at the United Nations this week is designed to marginalize the terror group and revive the two-state solution.
In an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital at the UN General Assembly in New York, Pascal Confavereux, spokesperson for France’s Foreign Ministry, rejected suggestions that President Emmanuel Macron was trying to position himself as an “anti-Trump” leader on the global stage.
The spokesperson stressed that relations between Trump and Macron remain strong, despite their visible differences at the U.N. “The French president and President Trump have a relationship that dates back to the first Trump administration. They have very intense discussions, and they are working on many, many issues,” he said, noting that the two leaders spoke again on Tuesday about a range of topics. “This is not at all against the Trump administration. On the contrary, what is done here will help.”
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He also linked the U.N. initiative to the broader framework of regional normalization first championed under Trump. “What were the Abraham Accords of the first Trump administration? They gave reassurance to neighboring Arab countries, and in exchange, they established stronger ties with Israel. Here, the logic is totally coherent with what we are doing, so it will help. Should the Trump administration want to go in this direction, it will definitely open the way to a kind of Abraham Two.”
Confavereux detailed how the package, led jointly by France and Saudi Arabia, combined recognition of Palestinian statehood with a series of commitments: condemnation of the Oct. 7 massacre, exclusion of Hamas from any future Palestinian government, governance reforms by the Palestinian Authority and planning for reconstruction and regional integration. “All these pieces of the puzzle were put together by this initiative,” he said, adding that otherwise “the two-state solution would have been in a very bad place.”
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Trump, in his own UN speech Tuesday, sharply condemned the French-Saudi plan. “Recognizing a Palestinian state today would reward Hamas for its horrible atrocities, including Oct. 7,” Trump told world leaders, warning that such recognition would prolong the conflict and embolden terrorists.
But the French spokesperson argued the opposite. “What was actually adopted at the United Nations General Assembly earlier this week was to save the two-state solution, which frankly was in mortal danger one year ago,” he said. “This is exactly a defeat of Hamas. Hamas doesn’t want two states, Hamas wants ‘from the river to the sea.’ It’s exactly against that this initiative was prepared.”
Pressed to answer critics who argue that Macron’s international activism is also an attempt to preserve his legacy while he faces domestic struggles and low support at home, the spokesperson declined to comment.
French officials nevertheless took pride in having secured broad support. The July “Declaration of New York” — spearheaded by France and Saudi Arabia — was formally adopted at the General Assembly this month with backing from 142 states. “It was a long effort, but it shows there is an international majority determined to keep the two-state solution alive,” the spokesperson said.
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On Monday, Trump used Truth Social to declare that Ukraine, with European support, “is in a position to fight and WIN all of Ukraine back in its original form.”
Confavereux welcomed the remarks, saying, “We welcome very positively these statements by President Trump. What we can see is that President Putin is not at all wanting peace — he’s sending bombs and drones in Ukraine, he’s violating NATO territory in Poland, Estonia, Romania. On the ground he is in total failure, gaining less than 1% of Ukrainian territory in 1,000 days, and that will not change our determination.”
